Tag Archives: high flying spectacular

Can’t say I have ever had any desire to see a musical but as I was in New York I thought that attending one was something I should do and for me there was only one choice; Spider-Man the musical. This wasn’t just down to my recently heightened interest in the franchise due to the new film (and my re-watching of the three films from the 2000′s in advance of that) but also because the score was done by Bono and The Edge from one of my favourite bands U2.

Rina came along with me to this (the photos above were actually taken a couple of days after we saw it when this area was swarming with people waiting eagerly to get into the theatre) and we had to queue up in the scorching sun on Times Square from 11am for tickets for the afternoon matinee performance. It took about 40 minutes to line-up which wasn’t too bad given the length of people waiting for all number of shows. We were so relieved to get tickets once we got to the window that we didn’t really notice that we had just coughed up $101 each for our tickets which were discounted but still way more than we had expected to pay.

After a huge Vietnamese lunch at ‘Saigon Grill’ which was one of Rina’s old haunts (she lived and studied in NYC for 5 years a few years back) we returned to 42nd Street where I had a brief encounter with acting legend Morgan Freeman. Foxwoods Theatre is where you can see eight performances a week of the show which is in two parts of about 75 minutes each. A bit too long for me yes but I guess it all meant value for money!

The show has been through it all really suffering bad publicity and scathingly negative reviews but its popularity with the public hasn’t been in too much doubt as its now in its second smash year and the place was packed full.

Maybe I’m like a kid as I loved all the swinging about over the crowd including the finale battle with The Goblin. I have to say that I was impressed with the overall way in which they brought the superhero to stage particularly the use of spiderwebs (basically, something similar to one of those popper things you may use at a wedding party!) and took an interest in the smooth way in which the set changes took place. However, ‘Turn Off The Dark’ certainly hasn’t turned me on to become a more regular theatre-goer if even to go ever again. I haven’t seen such a similar spectacle since I was a child, and though I don’t mind live acting on-stage, I’m certainly no fan of the stars suddenly breaking into song. I’m glad I went but I think I’ll stick to the big screen instead.